heuristic

serving to indicate or point out; stimulating interest as a means of furthering investigation.

encouraging a person to learn, discover, understand, or solve problems on his or her own, as by experimenting, evaluating possible answers or solutions, or by trial and error: a heuristic teaching method.

of, relating to, or based on experimentation, evaluation, or trial-and-error methods.

Computers, Mathematics. pertaining to a trial-and-error method of problem solving used when an algorithmic approach is impractical.